Humans and our organizations are inextricably linked with local, regional, and global ecological systems. Sociocracy is whole systems design for how we organize ourselves and make decisions. Permaculture is whole systems design for re-integrating humans with the ecologies we depend on for our existence - for example water, food, fuel, shelter. Together they provide powerful design approaches that support resilient, adaptable, connected systems.

This week on the show, Patri Ramirez Gonzalez from the Puerto Rico/Detroit Solidarity Exchange Network talks about grassroots plans to save family farmers and the ecosystem in Puerto Rico, and Trishala Deb, Asia regional director for Thousand Currents, a grant-making organization with partners across the world, shares hard won lessons from grassroots activists in Asia.

When I was a wee freshman in college, I would come back home for winter break to confidently inform my family of all of the tragic woes in the world and what was needed to fix them. My dad would always back-handedly reply, “That’s what’s wrong with you liberals. You think you’re always right.” I was offended, first by the categorizing of my ideals as being liberal, and second because what I was saying was right. There is a right and a wrong to the world and I was on the right side of it.

I need to say some more about the thinking I expressed in my earlier blog. My main point was and is that our most meaningful and effective protests have their source in sharp strategic thinking that is free of moral righteousness. Full of passion grounded in our values and concerns for a world that can work well, but not in moral righteousness.

Naomi Klein has an interesting article in the latest issue of the Nation, Daring to Dream in the Age of Trump. I recommend it. Much to appreciate, disagree with, and discuss. I want to focus on two features of it, one I find quite surprising and one that is so typical and so disempowering of the Democratic Left.

"Old and cherished ideas and ways of life die; new experiences arise and require a new vocabulary, a new grammar, a new vision." —Charles Johnson

Cooperative culture done well, is pivotal in building the critical mass needed to reach a societal tipping point in this era of existential crisis. Is it time for co-op activists to look in the mirror?

A conversation with Darya Marchenkova and Brian Van Slyke of the Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA) worker co-op. Topics include TESA's new board game Rise Up!, what it's like to work in a geographically distributed collective, and how the collective has balanced consensus and autonomous decision-making.

Cliff Martin and Len Krimerman discuss ways the cooperative movement can better engage youth, and how the Young People's Action Coalition is fostering the next generation of cooperative and social justice leadership. Also discussed is solidarity economy organizing in rural contexts and responses to the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential elections on the US solidarity economy movement.

[Editor's note: this is the first of a two-part conversation between Cliff Martin and Len Krimerman that was originally recorded as an episode of the GEO podcast. Unfortunately, the recording quality was quite low, even by our standards, and we didn't feel comfortable subjecting listeners to it. So we're presenting the conversation in text form, below. Thanks to Rob Brown for doing the transcription.]